A blog for Small Business Consultants and the vendors who serve them. It contains Opinions on business success, News in the SMB consulting space, and Information on what I'm up to.All material Copyright (c) 2006-2017 by Karl W. Palachuk unless otherwise noted.

Friday, June 08, 2012

SOP Friday: Technician Roles and Responsibilities

Last week we talked about the Service Manager's Roles and Responsibilities. The technician has fewer specific responsibilities, which makes sense. They are generally not involved with scheduling, keeping track of other techs, or budgeting.

You may have more than one level of technician. Normally, techs are basically designated by the tasks they perform. A "Tech I" will normally work on desktops while a "Tech II" or senior tech will work on servers and higher-end network issues. You should create job descriptions for these positions for hiring purposes. With luck, this article will help to create those job descriptions.

Your technicians play a critical role in your business because they are "hands on the street" with your clients. They will represent you to the clients. And, just as importantly, they will represent the client to you. Their perception of how things are working, and the client's level of satisfaction, are very important.

As you might expect, the most important part of the job description for the technician is the daily responsibilities. For the most part, monthly, quarterly, and annual tasks will be scheduled in the PSA system (Autotask or Connectwise). So the techs will see these items coming up on their schedules. The most common example of this is the Monthly Maintenance Checklists for each client.

Of course you will revise this, fine tune it, and make it fit into your company's standard operating procedures. Please let me know if you think I missed anything important on this list.

Technician Daily Roles and Responsibilities

• Focus on making every work hour a profitable hour for The Company.
• Follow all company standards and procedures as currently documented.
• Track all work -- billable or not.
• Provide an excellent example of customer service on all levels for the company.
• Share technical knowledge and help mentor fellow techs wherever possible.
• Work Service Requests as assigned according to The Company workflow procedures (highest to lowest priority; oldest to newest).
• Provide clients with one-to-one or one-to-many customer service as needed.
• Review time card to ensure it is being kept up to date in real time.
• Check in with the Service Manager or the acting supervisor at the end of the day to report general status and any issues needing attention.

Technician Weekly Roles and Responsibilities

• Preview the upcoming week's schedule and mark all assigned items as Acknowledged.
• Submit any requests for personal time and verify it is on the schedule.
• Coordinate any planned out of town services with the service manager and the clients.
• Take notes for any items to be presented in the Monday Morning Meeting.
• Review time card and submit for approval by the close of business the last day of the work week.

Technician Roles and Responsibilities - Miscellaneous

• Participate in your Quarterly Review including the Quarterly Review of the Service Manager.
• Develop a training schedule (along with your supervisor) and make sure you work this training into your schedule.
• Take certifications in a timely manner so you meet your quarterly and annual goals.

Implementation Notes

As with the Roles and Responsibilities for the Service Manager, you need to make changes to this and use it to advance the goals of your company.

Make sure that you review this with the technician(s) and get buy-in from everyone in the tech department (service coordinator, service manager, etc.). This document should be evaluated and update at least once per quarter for the first year you use it.

If appropriate, you might post a version of this on the bulletin board.

Your feedback is welcome.

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About this Series

SOP Friday - or Standard Operating System Friday - is a series dedicated to helping small computer consulting firms develop the right processes and procedures to create a successful and profitable consulting business.

Find out more about the series, and view the complete "table of contents" for SOP Friday at http://www.smallbizthoughts.com/events/SOPFriday.html.

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I make every attempt to honestly state what I believe and enjoy the freedom of posting whatever I feel like on this blog. This is a big complicated world and I have many interconnected personal and professional relationships.

I may in some way receive money or other benefits from any of the products, services, or companies mentioned in this blog as a direct or indirect result of my actions on and off this blog. Any experience mentioned here is just my experience and I have no knowledge about whether it represents a typical experience with any products, services, or companies mentioned.

Whenever it is possible to have both an honest and a misleading interpretation of my statements, please assume honesty. Thanks. - karlp